slums+of+the+city

- a big city

- rapidly growing city

SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building

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The name of Le Corbusier is synonymous with the International style of modern architecture and city planning, one utilizing functionalist designs carried out in twentieth-century materials with modern methods of construction. Charles-Edouard Jeanneret, born in the watch-making town of La Chaux-de-Fonds in the Jura mountain region, was the son of a watch engraver and dial painter. In the years before 1918 he travelled widely, studying building in many countries. He learned about the use of reinforced concrete in the studio of Auguste Perret and about industrial construction under Peter Behrens. In 1917 he went to live in Paris and spent the rest of his life in France; in 1920 he adopted the name of Le Corbusier, one derived from that of his ancestors (Le Corbesier), and ten years later became a French citizen.

Le Corbusier's long working life spanned a career divided into three distinct parts. Between 1905 and 1916 he designed a number of simple and increasingly modern houses; the years 1921 to 1940 were ones of research and debate; and the twenty years from 1945 saw the blossoming of his genius. After 1917 Le Corbusier gained a reputation in Paris as an architect of advanced originality. He was particularly interested in low-cost housing and in improving accommodation for the poor. In 1923 he published Vers une architecture, in which he planned estates of mass-produced houses where all extraneous and unnecessary features were stripped away and the houses had flat roofs and plain walls: his concept of "a machine for living in". These white boxes were lifted up on stilts, his pilotis, and double-height living space was provided internally, enclosed by large areas of factory glazing. In 1922 Le Corbusier exhibited a city plan, La Ville contemporaine, in which tall blocks made from steel and concrete were set amongst large areas of parkland, replacing the older concept of city slums with the light and air of modern living. In 1925 he published Urbanisme, further developing his socialist ideals. These constituted a major reform of the industrial-city pattern, but the ideas were not taken up at that time. The Depression years of the 1930s severely curtailed architectural activity in France. Le Corbusier designed houses for the wealthy there, but most of his work prior to 1945 was overseas: his Centrosoyus Administration Building in Moscow (1929–36) and the Ministry of Education Building in Rio de Janeiro (1943) are examples. Immediately after the end of the Second World War Le Corbusier won international fame for his Unité d'habitation theme, the first example of which was built in the boulevard Michelet in Marseille in 1947–52. His answer to the problem of accommodating large numbers of people in a small space at low cost was to construct an immense all-purpose block of pre-cast concrete slabs carried on a row of massive central supports. The Marseille Unité contains 350 apartments in eight double storeys, with a storey for shops half-way up and communal facilities on the roof. In 1950 he published Le Modular, which described a system of measurement based upon the human male figure. From this was derived a relationship of human and mathematical proportions; this concept, together with the extensive use of various forms of concrete, was fundamental to Le Corbusier's later work. In the world-famous and highly personal Pilgrimage Church of Notre Dame du Haut at Ronchamp (1950–5), Le Corbusier's work was in Expressionist form, a plastic design in massive rough-cast concrete, its interior brilliantly designed and lit. His other equally famous, though less popular, ecclesiastical commission showed a contrasting theme, of "brutalist" concrete construction with uncompromisingly stark, rectangular forms. This is the Dominican Convent of Sainte Marie de la Tourette at Eveux-sur-l'Arbresle near Lyon, begun in 1956. The interior, in particular, is carefully worked out, and the lighting, from both natural and artificial sources, is indirect, angled in many directions to illuminate vistas and planes. All surfaces are carefully sloped, the angles meticulously calculated to give optimum visual effect. The crypt, below the raised choir, is painted in bright colours and lit from ceiling oculi.

One of Le Corbusier's late works, the Convent is a tour de force.

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SUBJECT AREA: Architecture and building, Textiles

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Titus Salt arrived in Bradford with his father, who was a wool merchant in the town, in 1822. He soon set up his own company and it was there that he experimented with the textile worsted. Alpaca wool comes from an animal of the camel family that resembles the llama, and flocks of domesticated breeds of the animal had been raised in the high Andes since the days of the Incas. The wool was introduced into Europe via Spain and, later, Germany and France. The first attempts to spin and weave the yarn in England were made in 1808, but despite experimentation over the years the material was difficult to work. It was in 1836 that Salt evolved his method of utilizing a cotton warp with part alpaca weft. The method proved a great success and Bradford gained a reputation as a manufacturing centre for alpaca wool, exporting both yarn and cloth in quantity, especially to the USA. By 1850 Salt, who owned six mills, was Bradford's biggest employer and was certainly its richest citizen. He decided to move out of the city and built a new mill works, the architects of which were Lockwood and Mawson, on the banks of the River Aire a few miles from the city. Around the works, between 1851 and 1871, he built houses, a hospital, library, church, institute and almshouses for his workers. The buildings were solid, good-standard structures of local stone and the houses were pleasantly situated, with their amenities making them seem palaces compared to the slums in which other Bradford textile workers lived at the time. The collection of buildings was the first example in Britain of a "model new town", and was, indeed still is, a remarkable prototype of its kind. Apart from being a philanthropist and social reformer, Salt was also concerned with taking advantage of the technical developments of his time. His mill works, which eventually covered ten acres of land, was of fashionably Italianate architectural style (its chimney even a copy of the campanile of the Church of Santa Maria Gloriosa in Venice), although its structure was of iron framing. The weaving shed held 1,200 looms and had capacity for 3,000 workers, who produced 30,000 yards of cloth per day. Water from the river was used to produce steam to power the matchinery used in the manufacturing processes of scouring, dyeing and finishing. For the export of goods, the nearby Leeds-Liverpool Canal linked the works to Britain's chief ports, and the Midland Railway (an extension of the LeedsBradford line which opened in 1846) was of great use for the same purpose.

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1) (plant disease) Brand, der; (fig.) Geißel, die

2) (fig.): (unsightly urban area) Schandfleck, der

1) (affect with blight)

2) überschatten [Freude, Leben]; (frustrate) zunichte machen [Hoffnung]

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I. vt

▪ to \blight sth etw vernichten; ( fig) etw zunichtemachen [o ruinieren]

to \blight sb's chances jds Chancen zunichtemachen

II. n Pflanzenkrankheit f

potato \blight Kartoffelfäule f; ( fig) Plage f

to cast a \blight on sth einen Schatten auf etw akk werfen fig, etw verderben fig

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1. n

1) (on plants) Braunfäule f

2) (fig)

2. vt

1) plants zerstören

2) (fig) hopes vereiteln; sb's career, future also verderben

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blight [blaıt]

A s

1. BOT

a) Pflanzenkrankheit f, besonders (Trocken)Fäule f, Brand m, Mehltau m

b) Schädling(sbefall) m

2. besonders Br Blutlaus f

3. fig

a) schädlicher oder verderblicher Einfluss

b) Fluch m:

the blight of poverty;

cast ( oder put) a blight on sth etwas ungünstig beeinflussen;

cast ( oder put) a blight on sb’s life jemandem das Leben vergällen

4. a) Verwahrlosung f (einer Wohngegend):

area of blight → A 4 b

b) verwahrloste Wohngegend

B v/t

1. (durch Brand etc) vernichten, verderben, ruinieren (alle auch fig):

blight sb’s life jemandem das Leben vergällen

2. fig zunichtemachen, zerstören, vereiteln

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1) (plant disease) Brand, der; (fig.) Geißel, die

2) (fig.): (unsightly urban area) Schandfleck, der

1) (affect with blight)

2) überschatten [Freude, Leben]; (frustrate) zunichte machen [Hoffnung]

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vereiteln v.

SUBJECT AREA: Textiles

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Robert Owen's father was also called Robert and was a saddler, ironmonger and postmaster of Newtown in Montgomeryshire. Robert, the younger, injured his digestion as a child by drinking some scalding hot "flummery", which affected him for the rest of his life. He developed a passion for reading and through this visited London when he was 10 years old. He started work as a pedlar for someone in Stamford and then went to a haberdasher's shop on old London Bridge in London. Although he found the work there too hard, he stayed in the same type of employment when he moved to Manchester.

In Manchester Owen soon set up a partnership for making bonnet frames, employing forty workers, but he sold the business and bought a spinning machine. This led him in 1790 into another partnership, with James M'Connel and John Kennedy in a spinning mill, but he moved once again to become Manager of Peter Drink-water's mill. These were all involved in fine spinning, and Drinkwater employed 500 people in one of the best mills in the city. In spite of his youth, Owen claims in his autobiography (1857) that he mastered the job within six weeks and soon improved the spinning. This mill was one of the first to use Sea Island cotton from the West Indies. To have managed such an enterprise so well Owen must have had both managerial and technical ability. Through his spinning connections Owen visited Glasgow, where he met both David Dale and his daughter Anne Caroline, whom he married in 1799. It was this connection which brought him to Dale's New Lanark mills, which he persuaded Dale to sell to a Manchester consortium for £60,000. Owen took over the management of the mills on 1 January 1800. Although he had tried to carry out social reforms in the manner of working at Manchester, it was at New Lanark that Owen acquired fame for the way in which he improved both working and living conditions for the 1,500-strong workforce. He started by seeing that adequate food and groceries were available in that remote site and then built both the school and the New Institution for the Formation of Character, which opened in January 1816. To the pauper children from the Glasgow and Edinburgh slums he gave a good education, while he tried to help the rest of the workforce through activities at the Institution. The "silent monitors" hanging on the textile machines, showing the performance of their operatives, are famous, and many came to see his social experiments. Owen was soon to buy out his original partners for £84,000.

Among his social reforms were his efforts to limit child labour in mills, resulting in the Factory Act of 1819. He attempted to establish an ideal community in the USA, to which he sailed in 1824. He was to return to his village of "Harmony" twice more, but broke his connection in 1828. The following year he finally withdrew from New Lanark, where some of his social reforms had been abandoned.

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1) (the state of being out of favour: He is in disgrace because of his behaviour.) vanære, skam

2) (a state of being without honour and regarded without respect: There seemed to be nothing ahead of him but disgrace and shame.) vanære, skandale, skam

3) (something which causes or ought to cause shame: Your clothes are a disgrace!) skam, skandale

1) (to bring shame upon: Did you have to disgrace me by appearing in those clothes?) bringe skam over, gjøre skam på

2) (to dismiss from a position of importance: He was publicly disgraced.) skjemme ut, falle i unåde

•

- disgraceful

skam

unåde

subst. \/dɪsˈɡreɪs\/

1) ugunst, unåde

2) vanære, skam

3) skam, skamplett

4) skandale

• this is a disgrace!

be a disgrace to være til skam for

• the slums are a disgrace to the city

bring disgrace on\/upon være en skam for, vanære

• you have brought disgrace on your family

fall into disgrace falle i unåde

verb \/dɪsˈɡreɪs\/

1) vanære

2) skjemme ut, være en skam for

3) bringe skam over

be disgraced være i unåde, ha falt i unåde

disgrace oneself skjemme seg ut, nedverdige seg

1. 1) позорный, постыдный, скандальный

2) возмутительный, вызывающий возмущение

2. любящий посплетничать

3. клеветнический

4. редк. не относящийся к делу, вопросу

1) (censure) Verdammung, die

2) (Law): (conviction) Verurteilung, die

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noun die Verurteilung

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[ˌkɒndemˈneɪʃ^ən, AM ˌkɑ:n-]

1. (reproof) Verurteilung f, Verdammung f

2. (legal act) Verurteilung f

3. (declaration as unsafe) Untauglichkeitserklärung f

4. LAW (forfeiting property) Beschlagnahme f, Enteignung f

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1) Verurteilung f; (fig also) Verdammung f

2) (of slums, ship) Kondemnation f (spec)

3) (US JUR) Beschlagnahme f; (of land) Enteignung f

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condemnation [ˌkɒndemˈneıʃn; US ˌkɑn-] s

1. JUR und fig Verurteilung f

2. fig Verdammung f, Missbilligung f, Verwerfung f, Tadel m:

his conduct was sufficient condemnation sein Betragen genügte (als Grund), um ihn zu verurteilen

3. SCHIFF Kondemnierung f

4. JUR

a) auch SCHIFF Beschlagnahme f

b) US Enteignung f

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1) (censure) Verdammung, die

2) (Law): (conviction) Verurteilung, die

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Verdammung f.

Verhängung f.

Verurteilung f.

notorious [nəʊ'tɔ:rɪəs]

adjective

pejorative (ill-famed → person) tristement célèbre; (→ crime) célèbre; (→ place) mal famé;

∎ a notorious miser/spy/murderer un avare/espion/meurtrier notoire;

∎ she's notorious for being late elle est connue pour ne jamais être à l'heure;

∎ his notorious past son passé chargé;

∎ a city notorious for its slums une ville connue ou célèbre pour ses bidonvilles;

∎ the junction is a notorious accident spot ce croisement est réputé pour être très dangereux;

∎ the area is notorious for muggings il est bien connu que c'est un quartier où il y a beaucoup d'agressions